Episodi

  • Is Live Shopping Finally Here? A Trillion-Dollar Prediction

    Is Live Shopping Finally Here? A Trillion-Dollar Prediction
    Oct 27 2026
    Whatnot Chief Product Officer Tom Verrilli on why live shopping could reach 15 to 20% of US retail, recorded live at RetailClub AI Festival.A trillion dollars. That's where Tom Verrilli, Chief Product Officer at Whatnot, sees live shopping headed in the US: 15 to 20% of all retail. Sellers on Whatnot did more than $8 billion in sales last year, and they beat that number in the first half of this year. Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden have predicted live shopping would take off in North America every year since The Retail Razor Show started, after watching it explode in China and across Asia. Every year, they were wrong. Recorded live and in person at RetailClub AI Festival in Huntington Beach, this is the conversation they've been waiting for. Tom explains where AI fits in live commerce, from AI personalization to real-time discovery, and why he thinks the growth is only starting.In This Episode, You'll Learn:• Why Tom says asking about Whatnot's AI strategy is like asking about its internet strategy• How AI takes the grind out of selling so sellers can spend more time live• Why live shopping gets double the discovery signal of a traditional e-commerce site• Why recommendations on Whatnot have to run in real time, and how AI lets them go deeper• Why Tom calls static product pages "legacy" e-commerce (Casey made him explain)• How AI personalization on Whatnot uses who you like to buy from as well as what you buy• Why 80% of US retail still happens in person, and what live brings online from the store• Why Tom says today is 2005 for live shopping (jump to 15:31)• How a Pokémon card buyer got live lobsters onto Whatnot (jump to 17:03)Whatnot has 224 categories live today, from live lobsters to Louboutins, and fashion is its largest category by volume. If you're deciding how much of your channel mix belongs to live shopping, or what AI personalization should look like next, start here.Subscribe & Follow.How much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeThis is one of eight episodes we recorded live at RetailClub, rolling out across all four shows on the Retail Razor Podcast Network. Subscribe so you catch every one!Featured guest.Tom Verrilli. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-robertson-042/Chief Product Officer, Whatnot. https://www.whatnot.comTom Verrilli is the Chief Product Officer at Whatnot, where he leads Product, Design and Growth for the largest livestream shopping platform across North America, the UK, and Europe. His teams build tools that help sellers of all products and sizes launch, grow, and scale businesses while delivering engaging, discovery-driven experiences for buyers. Before joining Whatnot, Tom was Chief Product Officer at Twitch, where he led Product, Engineering, and Applied Science across all consumer products. He has also held senior product leadership roles at Twitter, bringing deep experience building global, creator-driven platforms. A proud native of Sydney, Australia, Tom now lives in San Francisco.Chapters.00:00 A Trillion-Dollar Prediction: Is Live Shopping Finally Here? 00:48 Live Shopping's $8 Billion Breakout Year 04:52 Meet the Chief Product Officer Behind Whatnot's Rise 05:45 AI's Role in the Future of Live Commerce 07:27 Is Traditional E-Commerce Already 'Legacy'? 09:35 How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Shopping Discovery 11:51 Why Shoppers Buy on Impulse (And Keep Coming Back) 13:09 The Real Secret to Personalization: Who You Buy From 15:31 Why Today Is 2005 All Over Again for Live Shopping 19:15 Final Thoughts: Stay Sharp, Stay Human, Stay AheadMeet your hosts.Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026 and a Top AI Leader for 2027. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and eCommerce, a Top 25 Thought Leader inCareers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI, AGI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in AI Ethics, Marketing, Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also awarded him an Elite Expert Certification in Retail, a Master Expert Certification in Management, and named him a Certified Expert in AI, Marketing, and Digital Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024, 2025 and 2026. He is an advisory council member at the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most ...
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    20 min
  • Nobody Has Champion in Their Title

    Nobody Has Champion in Their Title
    Oct 6 2026
    Vicki Cantrell and Dave Finnegan on what retailers and retail tech vendors get wrong about each other.Nobody has "champion" in their title. So how do retail tech vendors find the person who will push a project through? Recorded live at RetailClub AI Festival in Huntington Beach, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden talk with Vicki Cantrell, CEO and co-founder of Vendors in Partnership, and Dave Finnegan, Operating Partner and Chief Connection Officer at BlackFinn Partners. The two hosted VIP Connect, a three-hour session held right before RetailClub kicked off, where retailers and solution providers sat at the same table to learn how the other side makes decisions. Retailers think they know how retail tech vendors operate. Vendors think they know what selling to retailers takes. This conversation shows how much both sides have been guessing.with.In This Episode, You'll LearnWhy "we do AI" stopped working as an opener for retail tech vendors, and what great marketers lead with.What's happening behind a vendor rep's pitch, and why the budget question keeps coming up.The ROI question that retailers say makes selling to retailers a real conversation.How to find the champion inside a retail organization when nobody's title says it.The one question a former CIO says changes the whole discovery meeting.Why retailers want vendors to challenge their roadmap.If this episode changes how you think about how retail tech vendors sell to retailers, leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods.Subscribe & FollowHow much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeThis is the first of eight episodes we recorded live at RetailClub, rolling out across all four shows on the Retail Razor Podcast Network. Subscribe so you catch every one!Featured guestsVicki Cantrell, https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickicantrell/CEO & Co-founder, Vendors in Partnership - https://vendorsinpartnership.comVicki is a retail strategist and community builder, recognized for relationship building and accelerated growth. She founded Vendors in Partnership and the Vendors in Partnership (VIP) Awards, celebrating partnerships between retailers and solution providers and creating a joint community of these industry experts to advance retail innovation and partnerships.Her career includes Retail Transformation Officer for Aptos, NRF’s SVP Communities and Shop.org, COO of Tory Burch, CIO of Giorgio Armani and Gucci Group. Cantrell is a Vice President for the Retail Orphan Initiative (RetailROI), a non-executive director of Tandy Leather Company, and on the Executive Leadership Committee of the Retail AI Council.Dave Finnegan. https://www.linkedin.com/in/davefinnegan/Operating Partner - Chief Connection Officer, BlackFinn Partners. https://www.linkedin.com/company/blackfinn-partners/Dave Finnegan is an award winning retail innovator, brand anthropologist, and storyteller with over 25 years of experience leading customer experience, tech and digital transformation. He helped launch Build-A-Bear Workshop (CIO) and later served as Chief Experience Officer at Orvis, driving the brand’s most successful era. Dave now advises brands and investors through roles at BlackFinn, the NRF, and NewRoad Capital Partners.As a brand anthropologist and a member of the Explorers Club, in 2022 Dave dedicated a year to studying human experience. He traveled to every continent—interviewing indigenous leaders from the Amazon to Africa, scientists from Antarctica to the Galápagos, and some of the most interesting people in the world, including the librarian of the world’s oldest library at the Monastery of St. Catherine. He is currently pursuing a master’s in Anthropology at Harvard which is helping him to continue his journey to better understand human experience.Chapters00:00 Teaser00:52 Show Intro03:46 VIP Connect Recap: Inside the Room Where Retail Deals Get Made04:18 What Is VIP Connect? The Event Bringing Retailers and Vendors Together05:37 Everyone Says They Do AI — Here's Why That's a Problem06:48 How AI Has Completely Changed the Sales Conversation08:38 What's Really Happening Behind the Vendor's Pitch11:40 The Decades-Old Disconnect Between Business and Tech13:03 Forget Titles — Find the Real Champion15:36 People Buy From People: The Power of Just Asking Questions18:16 Stop Asking "What's Your Problem" — Ask This Instead21:56 Show CloseMeet your hostsHelping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for ...
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    23 min
  • The New Thing Gap - Saying No to New

    The New Thing Gap - Saying No to New
    Sep 15 2026
    The New Thing Gap - What retail took away when it took away the friction, with NYT editor Eric Athas.In 1995, buying a pair of sneakers cost you 30 minutes and five miles of driving. Today it takes about four seconds. New York Times editor Eric Athas spent four years reporting on what that trade did to people, and he has a name for the thing retail deleted: the new thing gap. Eric's book, Saying No to New, is out now. He interviewed Ricardo in 2024 for the consumer research behind it, and Ricardo shows up on page 41 explaining why off-price stores keep shipping in fresh inventory to keep shoppers hunting. This episode puts that quote back in front of the industry that inspired it. Ricardo and Casey take Eric through the uncomfortable version of the question. If the gap between wanting something and owning it was where the customer used to think, what happens to shoppers now that frictionless shopping has closed it? And what happens when agentic commerce deletes the last click? Eric's answer about AI shopping assistants is the line that sticks: we may have built the perfect motivated reasoning machine. This is not an anti-retail hour. Eric says plainly that the goal was never to say no to every new thing. He walks through the Iron Man method for deciding what to let in, the case for useful friction, why Ed O'Brien's research shows we are wrong about familiar things in a predictable direction, and the curb cut test that separates real innovation from innovation theater. Casey pushes him on whether there is a business on the other side of this, built on rediscovery instead of replacement. If you are building for agentic commerce this year or defending a frictionless shopping roadmap to someone who signs the checks, this hour will give you better questions than the ones you walked in with.In This Episode, You'll Learn.• Why the distance between seeing something new and owning it collapsed from 30 minutes and five miles to about four seconds, and what the industry removed along with it• Where useful friction belongs, plus the audit Eric uses to find the access points worth slowing down• Who an agentic commerce agent is optimizing for: the shopper, the retailer, or the company that built the agent• Why an AI shopping assistant that agrees with you is the magic pill effect with a bigger engine• The Iron Man method in three steps: name what matters, refuse what conflicts with it, accept what supports it• What Ed O'Brien's repeat-experience research means for brands that want to sell quality instead of replacement• How the Diderot effect turns one new desk into a new dining table, and what retailers owe people on the failure side of a purchase• The curb cut test for telling genuine innovation from innovation theater, and why Eric changed his mind about AI glasses• Ricardo's story about the UK retailer that cut buyer's-remorse returns in half by asking better questions at the shelf, and why frictionless shopping in reverse is the part retail keeps skippingSupport our sponsors.There’s still time to join us at RetailClub AI Festival next week.From the founders of Shoptalk and Groceryshop, RetailClub AI Festival brings together 2,000 industry leaders from September 22 to 24 for three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach focused entirely on how AI is transforming retail. Hear from 150 leaders shaping how AI is being used across the industry, explore the technologies changing how retail works, and connect with senior leaders from across retail, brands, technology and investment. Late registration is available at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast.We’ll see you in Huntington Beach!W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.ASU is a leading public research university and its W. P. Carey School of Business is the largest in the United States. AI-Enabled Supply Chain Strategy is a 3-day executive program running October 5-7, built by the #2-ranked Supply Chain Management department. The program is designed for senior leaders setting AI strategy across procurement, logistics, and operations.Register at https://specialevents.asu.edu/878064 with ID Code retailrazorasu for $1,500 off.Subscribe & Follow.How much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeFeatured guest.Eric Athas. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericathas/Deputy Editor, Newsroom Development & Support. The New York Times. https://...
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    1 ora e 13 min
  • The In-Store Retail Media Screens That Out-Earned Walmart.com

    The In-Store Retail Media Screens That Out-Earned Walmart.com
    Sep 1 2026
    The rise, death, and return of in-store retail media as lived by Mike Hiatt.Around 2010, the in-store retail media screens inside Walmart's stores were bringing in more revenue than Walmart.com. By 2015 the network was gone. Mike Hiatt, Founder & President of Dynamic Retailing, built it. He came to Bentonville to take over Walmart TV, which at the time meant 27-inch screens bolted up in the rafters playing audio that fought with Walmart Radio and lost. He rebuilt it as the Smart Network: eye-level screens, category channels, and five media endcaps that sold out every time they went to market. At its peak it had the reach of a Super Bowl each week. It was a retail media network before the industry coined the phrase. Then it came apart. Marketing owned the network, merchants owned the space, and nobody had built a way to cut the merchants in. Walmart pulled it out around 2015. Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden get Mike to walk through what really happened, why in-store retail media is working now when it stalled then, and what his book Timing the Desert says about being right too early. Ricardo spent that same era at Hughes delivering managed digital signage to retailers, so this one gets personal and specific fast.This is a story of what was, what could have been, and the lessons every retail media network leader today should learn from the original in-store media network.In This Episode, You'll Learn· Why a retail media network inside Walmart's stores out-earned Walmart.com and still got deinstalled· How the fight over trade funds, national ad dollars, and shopper marketing budgets stalled in-store retail media for a decade, and what Amazon did to end it· Why DSIQ, an ex-Microsoft team out of Seattle, built an ad server for store screens before the industry had the term, and why the company never scaled past Walmart· The difference between a salesperson and a business development person, and why sending the wrong one into a retailer kills the deal· Mike's five A's of in-store content: accessible, appropriate, adaptable, attractive, assembled· Why he argues for localization over personalization, and what it means to treat 2,000 stores as 2,000 super customers· Who he thinks reaches the in-store retail media cereal moment first· Why in-store retail media will never be as lucrative as online, and why every retail media network is heading there anywaySupport our sponsors.This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.From the founders of Shoptalk and Groceryshop, RetailClub AI Festival brings together 2,000 industry leaders from September 22 to 24 for three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach focused entirely on how AI is transforming retail. Through the Breakthruprogram, you can shape your experience before you even arrive. Request 15-minute, double opt-in meetings with the people you want to meet, join small-group conversations on the biggest questions in AI and retail, choose from more than 100 experiences, and connect over curated networking dinners. Retail and brand leaders can attend free, plus receive up to $1,750 toward travel and hotel. The Breakthru registration deadline has been extended to September 2. Register now at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast.W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.ASU is a leading public research university and its W. P. Carey School of Business is the largest in the United States. AI-Enabled Supply Chain Strategy is a 3-day executive program running October 5-7, built by the #2-ranked Supply Chain Management department. The program is designed for senior leaders setting AI strategy across procurement, logistics, and operations.Register at https://specialevents.asu.edu/878064 with ID Code retailrazorasu for $1,500 off.Subscribe & Follow.How much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeFeatured guest.Mike Hiatt. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehiatt/Founder & President of Dynamic Retailing. https://dynamic-retailing.comAuthor. Timing the Desert. https://a.co/d/07IJTQQS.Mike Hiatt is the president of Dynamic Retailing. A retail media consultancy focused on helping technology solutions providers work more effectively with retailers and assisting retailers better execute retail media strategies inside their stores. He is on the advisory boards at Venvee and Blue Zoo; he recently authored the business book Timing the Desert: A Front-Line perspective on Retail...
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    58 min
  • 280,000 Pickers: The eGrocery Fulfillment Math Nobody Fixed

    280,000 Pickers: The eGrocery Fulfillment Math Nobody Fixed
    Aug 18 2026
    Hank Crawford of Blue Collar Robotics and Paul Harker, retired CCO of Woolworths Group, on grocery store robotics a retailer can deploy today.There are 280,000 people walking the aisles of US grocery stores right now picking somebody else's order, and grocers cannot hire fast enough to keep up with the growth. That number comes from Hank Crawford, Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Collar Robotics, and it frames the whole conversation. Online grocery keeps growing. Labor keeps getting harder to find. And the two big swings the industry took at eGrocery fulfillment, the centralized fulfillment center and the micro fulfillment center, both left grocers with high CapEx, duplicated inventory, and people still picking most of the order. Hank is joined by Paul Harker, retired Chief Commercial Officer of Woolworths Group, Australia's largest retailer, who joined Blue Collar Robotics as a strategic advisor. Together with Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden they work through the economics of eGrocery fulfillment from the operator's side of the table: why the warehouse answer collapsed, what grocery store robotics has been getting wrong, and why a purpose-built robot with a remote operator behind it can drop into a supermarket that already exists. The mechanism is the interesting part. Blue Collar Robotics sells the picking as a service. A grocer pays a cost per pick, which moves the spend from CapEx into OpEx. The robot handles packaged center-aisle goods using vacuum suction, which is roughly 65% of a typical order, and store associates get redeployed to fresh, where care actually shows up in the customer's bag. Blue Collar reports eGrocery fulfillment cost reductions of as much as 50%. This is Season 6, Episode 10.In This Episode, You'll Learn• Why centralized fulfillment centers failed for grocery on four separate counts: volume density, distance from the customer, fresh, and CapEx• What Paul Harker says micro fulfillment centers still cannot solve, including duplicated inventory and picking "the uglies"• Why over 80% of a grocer's business is still the in-store customer, and how eGrocery growth quietly degrades that experience• The case for a human behind every robot, and why it is now standard practice for anything operating in an unstructured environment• What robot etiquette means in a store aisle, and what China's hotel delivery robots taught Hank about how not to do it• How the grocery store robotics buying conversation changes when the customer has no robotics team of its own• Why grocery store robotics took this long to find product-market fit in a supermarket, and what changed• Why the labor argument runs backwards here: there is no line of people waiting for picking jobs• How remote operation opens picking work to people who could never physically do it, and opens a 24 hour picking clock for the store• What Hank says is actually slowing adoption, and it is not the technologySupport our sponsorsThis episode was brought to you by RetailClub. Retail and brand leaders can attend RetailClub AI Festival completely budget-free, plus get $1,750 toward travel and hotel. From the founders of Shoptalk and Groceryshop, it's three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach, September 22 to 24. Spend time with 2,000 senior leaders working through how AI is transforming retail. Register by August 28 at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast.The W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. Arizona State University is a leading public research university known for innovation, access, and impact. Its W. P. Carey School of Business is the largest in the United States, with more than 25,000 students. AI-Enabled Supply Chain Strategy is a three-day executive program running October 5-7. It's built by W. P. Carey's #2-ranked Supply Chain Management department. The program is designed for senior leaders setting AI strategy across procurement, logistics, and operations. Register at https://specialevents.asu.edu/878064 with ID Code retailrazorasu for $1,500 off. Preview it in our three-part Data Blades podcast mini-series this September with Professor Brett Duarte.Subscribe & FollowHow much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeFeatured guestsHank Crawford. https://www.linkedin.com/in/hank-crawford-a4a9755/Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Collar Robotics. https://bluecollarrobotics.aiHank Crawford is Co-Founder ...
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    55 min
  • Store Traffic & Conversion Rates: Why In‑Store Converts up to 70%, with Mark Ryski

    Store Traffic & Conversion Rates: Why In‑Store Converts up to 70%, with Mark Ryski
    Jul 15 2026
    Mark Ryski explains why store traffic is a critical retail metric and how in‑store environments convert far higher than online. Hear data comparisons (in‑store up to 70% vs online 3% and Amazon 10%) and why 77% of shoppers left big‑box stores despite intending to buy (no help, long lines). Practical insights for retail leaders to boost in‑store conversion and checkout experience. This is Season 6, Episode 9.77% of shoppers who walked out of a big box store without buying told exit interviewers they came in to buy. They couldn't find help, wouldn't wait in line, and left empty-handed. Mark Ryski has spent almost 3 decades measuring that gap, and his new book gives it a name: Store Traffic Is A Gift, and most retailers waste it. This episode, Ricardo and Casey sit down with Mark Ryski, founder and CEO of HeadCount Corporation, to dig into retail's most misunderstood metric: in-store conversion. Physical stores convert 20% to 70%+ of their store traffic. Typical online sites convert under 3%, and Amazon converts about 10%. The store converts several times better than any other channel, yet 84% of retail sales (US Census Bureau, March 2026) still get managed as if online were winning, and in-store conversion gets treated as a vibe at the end of the day.In This Episode, You'll Learn• Why a store can get more traffic and sell less, and what conversion data reveals.• The exit survey result that changed a big box operator's mind about service.• The single fastest conversion win, and why most chains schedule it backwards.• How super converting stores hit 75% while sister stores in the same chain sit at 30%.• The CFO conversation: what 100 basis points of conversion is worth in top-line sales.• What BOPIS, curbside, and Amazon returns really do to store traffic and conversion.• Why accurate store traffic data is the demand signal AI needs before anything else.Support our sponsorsThis Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.Join 2,000 retail leaders at RetailClub AI Festival, September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. Dive deep into how AI is reshaping retail while soaking up the sun at a fully outdoor, beachside venue. Decision-makers from retailers and brands can attend with free tickets and up to $1,250 in travel reimbursement. Head to retailclub.com to learn more. https://retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcastSubscribe & FollowIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeFeatured guestMark Ryski. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ryski-8826601/CEO, HeadCount Corporation. https://headcount.comAuthor, Store Traffic Is A Gift. https://a.co/d/00VI3UujMark Ryski is the founder and CEO of HeadCount Corporation and one of the retail industry's leading authorities on store traffic and shopper conversion. For more than 20 years, he has helped retailers—from independent stores to large national chains in over 20 countries—convert more store visits into sales and make better operating decisions. He is the author of three books on retail performance, including Store Traffic Is a Gift: The Retailer's Guide to Converting Visits into Sales, Conversion: The Last Great Retail Metric, and When Retail Customers Count, the first book dedicated to the study of store traffic. Mark is a longtime BrainTrust contributor on RetailWire and has been recognized as a Rethink Retail Top Retail Expert in 2025 and 2026.Chapters00:00 Teaser00:32 Show Intro05:06 Welcome, Mark Ryski!10:28 Traffic Is a Gift13:09 Origin Story - Counting Traffic16:45 Conversion Numbers and Fast Wins23:16 Exit Surveys Reveal Missed Sales26:22 Proving Payroll Pays Back28:08 Inside Super Converting Stores31:57 BOPIS And Amazon Traffic Trap38:23 AI Needs Clean Traffic Data44:52 Optimism For Physical Retail48:03 Show CloseMeet your hostsHelping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing ...
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    49 min
  • Pragmatic AI for Retail’s Frontline: Tokenless & On-Device

    Pragmatic AI for Retail’s Frontline: Tokenless & On-Device
    Jun 13 2026
    BONUS S6E8 A Zebra ZONE 2026 recap on pragmatic AI, on-device AI, super apps, and giving store associates their day backRicardo Belmar just got back from Zebra Technologies’ ZONE 2026 conference in Nashville, where pragmatic AI was the main theme. In this special bonus episode of The Retail Razor Show, he and Casey Golden unpack what it all means for retail’s frontline workers. This is a story about pragmatic AI, the kind that gives store associates and warehouse teams their day back instead of promising the moon.The headline from ZONE 2026? Zebra is no longer telling a devices story. It’s telling a frontline platform story, anchored by on-device AI that runs with no cloud, no tokens, and no waiting. Ricardo brought back two exclusive interviews, with Zebra CTO Tom Bianculli and Mobile Computing chief James Poulton, plus a notebook full of stats, demos, and hallway conversations that deliver the full pragmatic AI story.We get into why frontline workers are drowning in 70 to 80 apps when they only use about a dozen, the super app built to fix it, real-time translation running live on a device, and why “tokenless” pragmatic AI became the word of the week. If you want to understand on-device AI and what it delivers for frontline workers, this episode is your shortcut.In This Episode, You'll Learn• Zebra’s three big software announcements: Nucleus, Workcloud IO, and Workcloud BI• The 80-apps problem and the super app designed to collapse it down to one experience• Why on-device AI, tokenless and at the edge, beats cloud round trips for frontline use cases• Real-time translation in any language, live on the device• Micro-learning, the “TikTok of learning,” and tackling 70 to 80% frontline turnover• Picture proof of delivery: how a second and a half scales into tens of millions of dollars• The octopus organization, and why intelligence belongs at the edge of the org• James Poulton on why large language models are overhyped for the enterpriseWhy it mattersWe’ve spent years on this show arguing that your associate experience is your customer experience. ZONE 2026 felt like the technology industry finally catching up to that idea, treating frontline workers as the most under-invested asset in retail and giving them on-device AI that augments rather than replaces. Pragmatic AI wins on the accumulation of small moments, and that is the thread we pull all episode long.Subscribe & FollowIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeFeatured guestsTom Bianculli, Chief Technology Officer, Zebra Technologieshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bianculli-9053892/James Poulton, SVP & GM, Mobile Computing, Zebra Technologieshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespoulton/Chapters00:00 Teaser01:01 Show intro02:12 What Zebra announced at ZONE 202604:00 The 80-apps problem and the super app06:53 Real-time translation on the device08:55 Tokenless, on-device AI explained11:46 Best moment: the octopus organization15:43 Interview: Tom Bianculli, CTO Zebra Technologies35:50 Recap: pragmatic AI and returning time to workers40:27 Interview: James Poulton, SVP & GM Mobile Computing53:21 Big takeaways from ZONE 202659:32 Show CloseMeet your hostsHelping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from ...
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    1 ora
  • Retail Trends 2026 - 8 Signals From The Lead Summit

    Retail Trends 2026 - 8 Signals From The Lead Summit
    May 29 2026
    BONUS S6E7 8 retail trends for 2026 including AI-assisted shoppers, why people are the new luxury, and the grey swans most retailers are ignoringCasey Golden and Ricardo Belmar spent two days at The Lead Summit in New York City with the operators, founders, and analysts actually running retail right now, and they walked out with a clear read on the retail trends 2026 will be built on. Instead of a session-by-session recap, this bonus episode pulls out the eight cross-cutting themes that showed up no matter whose stage they were on, from Anthropologie and Talbots to Hey Dude, Olaplex, Loop, and Coterie.The headline: every AI experiment built to replace people was a failure story, and every one built to extend people was a winner. From there the conversation runs through the rewired store, the rise of the AI-assisted shopper, why human connection is becoming the new luxury, and the grey swan events most retailers can see coming but refuse to plan for. If you want the retail trends 2026 leaders are quietly betting on, plus what to do about it Monday morning, this is the episode.In This Episode, You'll Learn• Why AI augmentation beats AI replacement, and the customer service "40% ticket deflection" stat that fell apart under real measurement• How the AI-assisted shopper is already changing product discovery, and why generative engine optimization (GEO) is getting 80% of the attention on 5% of the traffic• Why "people are the new luxury" may be the one theme still defining retail trends 2026 a year from now• What Talbots' 35-of-100 transactions stat says about store KPIs beyond sales per square foot• How community beat audience for breakout brands, and why your brand story now has to teach the LLMs who you are• The grey swans hiding in plain sight: GLP-1, the aging of America, and single-geography supply chain risk• The Monday-morning move to make before the AI-assisted shopper takes a bigger bite of your holiday trafficNotable Moments & Quotes• "AI won't sit down and have a cigarette with me." The line that summed up why people still matter.• "Listening is a capability, but hearing is a skill."• Rainbow Shops: a vendor's 40% ticket deflection collapsed because customers just hung up and called back for a human.• Talbots' Concierge clienteling went from reaching 300,000 of 750,000 eligible customers to all of them, while keeping the calls human. AI does the volume, people do the moments.• Loop Earplugs grew from $1M to $250M in five years, obsessing over one question: where did you first hear about us?• MoMA Design Store: "We're not Amazon, and we don't want to be."• Randa Apparel's grey swans: GLP-1 (roughly 8M users today, potentially 100M by 2030), more Americans over 65 than under 18 by 2028, and the warning that "a business built around a single geography isn't lean, it's exposed."Subscribe & FollowIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeChapters00:00 Teaser01:01 Show Intro03:18 The BIG Recap - Our 8 Themes form The Lead Summit05:49 Theme 1 - The Augmentation Imperative09:49 Theme 2 - People are the New Luxury14:17 Theme 3 - The Rewired Store18:40 Theme 4 - Get Ready for the AI-Assisted Shopper24:19 Theme 5 - Community Over Audience30:57 Theme 6 - Brand Discipline and the Power of Saying No35:22 Theme 7 - Multiplatform & Multigenerational Reality40:23 Theme 8 - Grey Swans: The Conversations Most People Aren't Having45:39 Key Take Aways: What Should Listeners Do Monday Morning?48:53 Show CloseMeet your hostsHelping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a ...
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    50 min